The Midnight Marauders

Round 2 action opens up on Wednesday night over on the left coast with a tasty contest featuring 3-1 Perth Heat and the 4-0 Adelaide Bite. Since the Defensive Specialist was so spot on with his last set of predictions, it only makes sense that your old pal takes another look at the teams and gives the loyal readers a fairly detailed assessment of how things are going to play out. At the outset of the ABL season, it’s fair to say that both teams featured in most experts’ top four so it’s no surprise that both made short work of their opponents in the opening series. What was surprising was how both teams went about it – almost flying in the face of what those “so called” experts determined were their strengths and weaknesses.

In years past the Heat have always been a team that pitched the hell out of the ball. With key player losses on the pitching staff, it seemed like their pitching was on the downward swing just as their offense was maturing into a vaunted attack. With home grown hitters like Luke Hughes, Tim Kennelly and Mitch Graham growing into their ‘man strength’ years, the Heat line-up had the potential to put beat downs on almost any team. Early indications are that the Heat will combine their local products with a couple of imports to once again build an imposing line up.

The thinking for 2010/2011 was the offense would drive the bus and the pitching just had to keep them in games. The news that Hughes and Kennelly likely wouldn’t play together put a crinkle in that plan, but on paper they had enough bats to bang it around. So imagine the Defensive Specialist’s surprise when the Heat flew in to Brisbane and beat the Bandits 3 games to 1 while scoring 12 runs and yielding 11. That ‘runs against’ tally was one bullpen implosion away from being 6 - a measly 1.5 runs per game! With outstanding performances from youngsters Daniel Schmidt (8 innings, 0 runs) and Warwick Saupold (5 innings, 0 runs) and a solid contribution from Liam Baron (6 innings, 3 runs) suddenly it was the Heat’s starting pitching that looked imposing. Couple that with excellent bullpen contributions from Liam Hendricks, Cameron Lamb and Tyler Anderson and the boys from Perth were continuing the Year of the Pitcher!

Offensively the Heat walked away with 3 wins despite limited contributions from the heart of their line up  - Hughes (3 for 14) and Graham (3 for 16). Centrefielder Brandon Dale and outfielder/first baseman Robbie Widlansky carried much of the load offensively but all in all, manager Brooke Knight would be hoping for a little more firepower.

Adelaide on the other hand came into this season as a team whose pitching looked to be in good order. Led admirably by Paul Mildren last season, the Bite pitching staff gave themselves a shot in every contest with excellent starting pitching and a solid relief corp. Darren Fidge, Dushan Ruzic and Ryan Murphy were expected to play significant roles alongside Mildren with US import Brandon Maurer chipping in quality innings. The plan was simple – limit the opponent’s output and hope that the offense could scratch enough runs out to get a W, especially when last year’s champs roll into town.

And boy, didn’t it all go to plan! Sure Mildren, Fidge and Ruzic dealt, yielding only 4 earned runs between them in almost 22 innings but it was the offense that blew the doors off, cranking out 35 runs across the 4 game series and wiping the field with the Aces pitching staff. Led by imports Quincy Latimore (6 for 14, 3 bombs, 6 runs, 8 RBI’s and an OPS of 1.601), Brandon Bantz (6 for 11, 5 RBI’s) and James McOwen (7 for 17, 4 runs, 5 RBI’s) and professional hitter Ben Wigmore (6 for 15, 2 HR’s and 6 RBI’s), the Bite were midnight marauders (obscure A Tribe Called Quest reference – bonus Deep in the Hole point to any commentor who can provide the link to this post) from an offensive perspective.  That sort of output is unrealistic to expect each week but judging by the feedback the Defensive Specialist received from those in attendance, Latimore looked like a man amongst boys and McOwen and Bantz seemed pretty comfortable facing the Melbourne pitching that was dominant just one year ago.

So who comes out on top in this series? Well the Heat add another import bat in outfielder Ronnie Welty (another contender for name of the year, along with Didi Gregorious and Boss Moanaroa) who popped 18 long balls last season in high A ball. Despite losing Dale to work commitments, the Defensive Specialist expects Hughes to step it up for the home opener and Widlansky to maintain his hot start. Pitching-wise it may be ambitious to hope for similar outputs from the likes of Saupold and Schmidt, but if they are competitive and Cole McCurry can be stretched out to more than 3 innings they should be strong on the mound.

The Bite would love their starters to repeat last week’s performance (well perhaps Maurer could tighten his up) and will be praying at the altar of the Baseball Gods that Latimore continues the Q-Tip ManWomanBoogie that he’s put on the league so far:

If Wigmore, Bantz and McOwen can be joined by Stefan Welch, the Adelaide line-up suddenly looks scary good. That offense + that pitching = a force to be reckoned with.

Prediction you ask again?

Can’t you tell the Defensive Specialist is stalling? It’s important to remember how tough it is to sweep a series – either home or on the road, so with that in mind, the guru of successful series outcomes predicts that the teams will split 2-2. Yes, the Defensive Specialist knows that call really flies in the face of his ‘balls on the line’ mentality but early in the season there are too many variables with both teams to call a clear cut victor.

You’re right the Defensive Specialist is being a pussy – Perth Heat in their home opener (despite playing one game at 11am) 3 games to 1.